Shared grief pulls together Chinese students at USC

A photo of University of Southern California graduate student Xinran Ji sat next to a flower arrangement during his memorial service at the University of Southern California campus in Los Angeles on Aug. 1. (AP Photo/Los Angeles Times, Robert Gauthier, Pool)

LOS ANGELES » The messages in Chinese kept flashing across Haowang Wang's phone: Another Chinese student at the University of Southern California had been killed.

Shui? Shui? the messages repeated. Who is it?

Wang froze briefly, then began making calls he thought he'd never have to make again — to friends, classmates, a funeral home.

Two years ago, he and others helped guide Chinese students as they grappled with the murder of two USC graduate students. They tried as best they could to navigate the foreign world beyond the cocoon of the university.

Now, he must do it again.

"Yinggai de," Wang said. "It must be done."

The killing of 24-year-old Xinran Ji on July 24 has drawn the community of Chinese students into a circle of sadness and confusion.

Ji, an engineering graduate student, was beaten to death with a baseball bat as he walked home from a study group after midnight, police said. Four teenagers have been arrested and charged with his murder.

The students, as scholars, are the cream of their country — the very smartest in a land of 1.3 billion people. But the killing of their classmate has thrown them into a foreign world that they must struggle to understand, just as they did two years ago.

The courts here move at a snail's pace compared with China, where a trial and death sentence can be carried out in a few months. Even the most basic legal concepts here — innocent until proven guilty — are foreign.

Unlike students from Taiwan and Hong Kong, the students from mainland China are more recent arrivals and are culturally distinct. They have a powerful sense of obligation to bear witness for their classmates' families in China, thousands of miles away.

"He was their only child," Wang said after contacting Ji's family a few days ago. "I can understand their pain, their confusion."

Hundreds of students had gathered around the statue of Tommy Trojan two years ago to mourn Ming Qu and Ying Wu.

Qu and Wu, both 23, were graduate students in electrical engineering. Qu had just called his parents in China to tell them he was in love.

The couple were shot to death by two men as they sat in a parked BMW just west of campus. The motive was robbery, police said.

At the impromptu memorial, mourners with black hair and black clothing clutched bouquets of white lilies. They arranged white candles in the shape of a heart.

Some students nodded to one another, recognizing familiar faces on the way to and from laboratories, the library, the same off-campus streets.

How long have you been here? Where is your family from? they whispered to each other. The answers wafted across the gathering: Fujian, Hangzhou, Beijing, Yunnan and other places across China.

They could recognize one another by their accents, the way they dressed, their dreams to succeed in America.

For the more than 3,000 Chinese students at the university, their lives are joined by more than being strangers in a foreign country.

They are united by a childhood defined by the pressure to excel in school, to earn back the life savings their parents have invested in their wants and ambitions. Their lives are dominated by the Chinese government's policy of allowing families to have only one child.

With each birthday and graduation, they are reminded that they are their parents' one hope for the future.

They saw in Qu and Wu a reflection of themselves. The condolences they wrote in a book for their parents could've been said for any of their peers.

At the time, Wang was an engineering graduate student at USC and the president of the Southwest Chinese Student and Scholars Association. The group's biggest activities involved organizing dinners and Chinese New Year celebrations for those who couldn't go home.

Wang had come to the U.S. from the small city of Jincheng in Shanxi province. His mother was a retired accountant; his father, a businessman. Wang wanted to come to the U.S. "to open my eyes."

After the arrests of two suspects, Javier Bolden, then 19, and Bryan Barnes, then 20, Wang was worried that there would be no one to speak for Qu and Wu.

In a county with about 600 killings a year, who would fight for two Chinese students?

"We just want everybody to focus on the case, see how senseless the killings were," said Joy Xing, a close friend of the couple and a USC student. "I want to be there to show the court and society that my friends are not alone in this country."

The American criminal justice system is largely a mystery to the Chinese students.

Attorney Daniel Deng, who became an unofficial adviser to the students, said most do not understand that a suspect's fate is decided by a jury of ordinary citizens, rather than professional jurors as it's done in China.

"In China, prosecution to execution usually takes three to six months," said Deng, who came to the United States from China as a student 27 years ago. "Here, it's not going to happen overnight. I explained to them the concept of due process, that the defense has the right to review the case."

The students began a courtroom vigil. No matter what, someone would sit in court each time, even though it was difficult to understand what was taking place.

At an early hearing, one student typed a quick search on his iPhone: "arraignment." He turned to some friends and confirmed in Mandarin, "They have to plead not guilty or guilty today."

"So if they plead not guilty, will the jury then come out?" asked Thomas Young, who had never set foot in an American courtroom before.

At one point, the students heard a rumor that Bolden and Barnes might get only 20 years in prison if convicted. That would be intolerable, they said.

They collected more than 7,000 signatures calling for the death penalty and demanded to see Steve Cooley, the district attorney at the time. Cooley explained the two outcomes that could come with the charges: The death penalty, or prison for life.

Earlier this year, Barnes pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder. Under the deal, he avoided the death penalty and was sentenced to life in prison.

"My daughter is gone, so is our hope," said Wu's father, Xiyong Wu, at the hearing.

He said he still logs on to his computer every day, messaging his daughter as if she was still abroad.

Bolden is set to stand trial at a later date.

Since the sentencing, many of the students who kept vigil in the courtroom have graduated and begun careers. Some have stayed here; many have moved back to China.

Ji's slaying has reopened feelings they thought they had put behind.

At a memorial Friday, about 300 students gathered in Alfred Newman Recital Hall on campus. The students, some with white flowers in hand, walked into the hall. One by one they laid them on the stage.

Clusters of students huddled together, greeting one another in Chinese. Mourners bowed before a photo of Ji as his parents sat in the front row, occasionally sobbing.

Wang, who graduated from USC last year and stayed in L.A. to work on launching a job networking start-up, sat among the mourners. He's been taking time off this week to talk with students about what to expect next.

Others have stepped up to help Ji's family. They have begun a new courtroom vigil.

On Tuesday, Deng sat quietly at the front of the courtroom when the four teenagers appeared for arraignment. Next to him sat Sumo Liu, who just finished her first year at USC. They waited four hours, only to have the court proceeding postponed.

Liu was still in China when Qu and Wu were killed. Her parents didn't want her to go to USC, but she decided to go because of the university's academic ranking.

"I assumed after those two students, USC would do a better job with security, that it would be OK," Liu said. "Who would've thought it'd happen again? And for it to happen to my friend?"

Deng spoke this week with Qu and Wu's parents. They were devastated when they heard about Ji, Deng said. They felt like they had failed somehow to make sure other students at USC were protected from their children's fate.

"They just don't want other families to go through the tragedy they have had to live through," Deng said.

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konag43wrote:

hey you don't want them at usc we'll take them in hawaii. us can always use the extra money

on August 14,2014 | 05:24PM

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Chennchinawrote:

EXACTLY!

on August 14,2014 | 05:52PM

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1localwrote:

asians learn from missouri

on August 14,2014 | 08:15PM

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RetiredWorkingwrote:

kona, colleges and universities in Hawaii cannot compete with name-brand high-echelon institutions like USC and many others. China wants their very best attending America's best schools.

on August 15,2014 | 06:12PM

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mitt_grundwrote:

This is all driven by the hate inspired by our leaders in Washington, D.C. If you mark white nations as evil, Great Britain, France, Russia, there is outrage. But in a crowd these nationalities don't stand out. But in white America, which likes to fault China for taking away jobs, Chinese students do. So, it becomes easy to identify, isolate and kill. Just racism in the name of national pride, driven by the likes of Barry Obama and GOP/Tea Party. They see no fellow human beings, only yellow-skinned monkeys to be slaughtered.

Funny thing is that it is vulture capitalists like Mitt Romney who are sending American jobs overseas in the quest for bigger profits. They should crucify men like him, and not innocents.

Chinese students should go to countries where they are truly wanted and not treated as the enemy. America is out, since it is blatantly racist and bigoted. Perhaps, Canada is the better choice. Great Britain, France, Italy, Germany, and Australia are countries who welcome them, but have a "segregated" or stratified social structure that also works to isolate these students.

By no means should Chinese students come to Hawaii. It is a state full of Chinese haters. Just look at the blogs that follow a story on China or Chinese tourists. The money of your rich parents is all they want. And of course the tourist dollars. Give us your RMB and go home ASAP.

on August 14,2014 | 08:03PM

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HD36wrote:

Whenever a nation's economy starts to collapse, people blame the foreigners, the Jews, or anyone but the very government responsible for the collapse in the first place. Corporations don't love America more than they love money. Sure they moved companies to China, but only after Bill Clinton granted China "most favored nation status, in 1990. He said, we are entering a new economy. We no longer need manufacturing. The new economy for America will be based on the internet. With a standing army Federal government workers, enforcing regulations from the EPA, OSHA, Obamacare, etc.. and all the lawyers waiting to sue companies for sexual harassment, racial discrimination, age discrimination, handicap discrimination, etc, and all the tax rates, these corporations, with the encouragement of granting China the Most Favored Nation status, gladly closed shop and moved.
If on the other hand, we look back to America's most productive years, it's always been when the government was at its smallest. When America had a trade surplus over 30 years ago. The reason is simple. The government doesn't produce anything. Of course 99% of the people will go along with the government propaganda and blame China, or Russia, or the WWIII on the coming economic collapse. I would think Chinese are safer here than the mainland because so many locals have Chinese blood. But, yes they do stick out from the crowd.

on August 14,2014 | 08:34PM

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hanalei395wrote:

"It is a state full of Chinese haters. Just look at the blogs that follow a story on China or Chinese tourists". ....... Not here, just the states on the continent. The "Yellow Peril" still exists there. The blogs are by outsiders who move here, bringing their culture with them.

on August 14,2014 | 09:22PM

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sailfish1wrote:

These Chinese students, like it says, are the ones who will be leaders in their communities and China. Don't think they will forget the kind of people who rob, beat, and kill them.

on August 14,2014 | 08:33PM

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Mei meiwrote:

soo senseless and tragically sad for all these families....

on August 15,2014 | 02:36PM

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mauidaywrote:

USC, great school located in dangerous neighbor. Not the first act of violence to Asian students attending USC. USC should make sure foreign students are made aware of the urban jungle dangers just outside the "ivory tower" of USC. I hope USC will provide more education about racial hatred in America to foreign students and the dangers of inner city living in the US and more off campus security in surrounding areas. The pain of the parents who lost their children in this manner is so devastating.